Walther PPK

"Walther PPK. 7.65 mm, with a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window. Takes a Brausch silencer with very little reduction in muzzle velocity. The American CIA swear by them."- Major Boothroyd to 007, Dr. No

The Walther PPK was the weapon of choice for James Bond from the films Dr. No to Tomorrow Never Dies (except Moonraker and Octopussy) and again in Quantum of Solace and SkyFall. The gun is also mentioned in the Ian Fleming novels from Dr. No to The Man with the Golden Gun. It's the only gun / gadget that is used by all the Bond actors.

It all starts in Ian Fleming's novel Dr. No, when M, the head of MI6, orders Bond to turn in his Beretta pistol and replaces it with a 'superior' gun, the Walther PPK. Read the story of how the PPK became Bond's weapon of choice.

Walther PPK (Polizeipistole Kurz - Police pistol 'short') is a shortened version of the Walther PP (Polizeipistole) and differs from it in size (shorter barrel and grip) and magazine size. The Walther PPK was first presented in 1931; it quickly became very popular among European police agencies and civilian shooters since the gun was reliable and easy to conceal, but of moderate power. During the Second World War the guns were issued to German military police personnel, high military officers and other military personnel.

Comments

For those of you without the means or the will to own a real firearm may I reconmend the ASGK PPK/s BB gun or the Walther made PPK Co2 Air gun. Having used both and owned a few of each they shoot great and better yet normally don't require any kind of licence. However normally you need to be 18+ to buy one today.

While no toys they are unlikly to kill anyone and are great for some casual shooting around the house. Better yet as the better ones are made by/under licence from Walther Germany, (Europe seems to have a good size air gun market) size, feel and action of the guns is very similiar to the real steel.

The better made official Co2 PPK uses Walther made capsules of Co2, mine are all marked as made in Germany, and fires small .177 or .22 lead free pellets. There are both .177 and .22 cal guns available if you look. As these are official products many (but by no means all) real steel PPK accesories work such as holters, cases and sights. On the air gun side of things extra magazines are also not hard to come by as Walther's air gun section Umarex make them and sell them to the public.

If buying don't pay more then £100 for any of the guns most can be picked up for around £70 and try and buy a Cybergun/KWC (from the far east but offical) or a Umarex gun.

A final note the .32 ACP (7.65mm) bullet is plenty for 007. Happy and safe shooting.

I own a PPK and PPK/s-1, both in .380ACP. Overall the PPK is a nice pocket / discreet pistol. There is a variety of holsters available from belt to inside the waistband and shoulder holsters to ankle holsters. I carry my PPK/s-1 every day and non is the wiser.

Nice pistols. I am still looking for an original .32ACP blued German made PPK though . . . The Original 007 PPK.

Encountering many complaints about the American made Walther ppk/s...weight seems silly problem...reliability is different matter...ammunition OAL sensititve ( golly, is this the first time ? )...aftermarket magazines ( golly, again ? ) heavy trigger weight, no sights
S & W PPK/S IS TOP NOTCH !!!

I inherited my Dad's 7.65mm Walther PPK that he "liberated" from a German officer in WWII. I always admired this gun but never got to fire it while he was alive. I now carry it as my off duty concealed weapon. It is the most comfortable concealed weapon I have ever used and the sweetest firing.

Most people think this is an ideal carry gun because of the films. I can't say that. 7.65mm(.32acp for those of us that are yankees) isn't a great caliber, but we can get them in .380 (9x17mm for you metric fans) in that case it's decent. But there's much smaller .380 pistols available with the same capacity in the states. But it is an elegant gun to own

If you're not a big burly guy, this is the CCW that doesn't show or mess up the fit of your suit. Though if you're a suit and tie type, you should have a really good holster and have your tailor fit the suits with it. Doesn't have the knock-down power of the big ones, but for close in and buying time, it is an effective weapon.

In Skyfall Bond is issued the Walther PPK/S in "9mm Short" (aka "9mm Kurz" in Germany, and ".380 caliber" in the U.S.). The one he's issued has a palm reader in the grip installed by Q-Branch so that only Bond can fire it.
The difference between the PPK and the PPK/S is the PPK/S has a larger Walther PP frame with a PPK slide. The reason for the creation of the PPK/S is that in 1968 the U.S. banned importation of small pocket pistols, including the PPK. Walther countered by offering the PPK/S which is large enough to be allowed for import. The PPK/S has one more round capacity due to the longer grip. For over 30 years the PPK was unavailable for purchase new in America. In the early 2000s Smith & Wesson entered into a licensing deal with Walther and started manufacturing both the PPK and the PPK/S in America. However, it's been widely reported that the quality isn't as good as the German-made Walthers.
In Skyfall after Bond ignores Q's warning and loses the PPK/S he appears in later scenes with a PPK.

I'm very confused as to why the production has reverted back to the PPK. Here is my argument... The switch from the PPK to the P99 in the films was as drastic as the switch from the Beretta to the PPK in the books, given Bond's background with his Beretta. Secondly, if the "new" Bond is meant to be the "updated" version, why oh why have they reverted back to such an old school, but not necessarily old fashioned, weapon? As I stated in a post about the DBS, that supposedly issued gadget is actually sort of comical. Are we supposed to believe that MI6 just issues out flashy $220,000 sports cars to all of their "undercover" operatives? If so, if I were a British citizen, I would be seriously concerned about where my tax money is going. In Skyfall, they fixed that issue.
In Skyfall, MI6 issued Bond no Astons and we routinely saw Jags as company cars which is far more logical. Also, we saw that Bond had claimed his DB5 as his personal car, which, in the books, tinkering with cars was one of Bond's only personal pashions. This is also much more logical (as long as you subtract the completely illogical missiles and machine guns someone supposedly installed). In the same respect, issuing out PPKs instead of P99s or the newest PPQ is nearly the same as issuing Bond a telephone booth instead of a cell phone. If we were to believe Bond runs around with a PPK, the production should have woven into the story that the PPK is Bond's personal gun and they should've issued a P99 in the art gallery.
Now I know that the UK has all sorts of gun bans and all that, but I could bring up the DB5's armory issue again. I also understand that the PPK is much smaller than the P99 and easier to conceal, but has that real life issue ever been a problem for Bond? Nope. I'm a big fan of the PPK but this choice just makes no sense.

The K in PPK while commonly understood to stand for Kurz actually stands for Kriminal, referring to the Police Detectives division of the German Police. It was designed with the idea of being worn by them in plain clothes, whereas uniformed police are already a target and thusly don't mind carrying a large outspoken firearm.

I was trained by CIA at Monterey but refused to work for them after the poor handling of my criminal report of CIA drug trafficking. I studied at the premier gunsmithing school in the U.S. I had an opportunity to buy the banned PPK when I was assigned to Berlin (not CIA) in the 60's, but passed. I noticed that in Skyfall, Bond fires a very poor group of 9 shots on a silhouette target. How is this possible with a PPK (7 shot) or PPK/S (8 shot). Was this a 22LR or 25 ACP model? The holes look like .356 inch diameter. Ian Fleming had poor technical advisers, and Hollywood cocks it up even worse. Also, in the opening scene, the double-drum magazine used by his adversary is a miserable jam-o-matic nightmare. Only in cinema can writers make so many mistakes. I suspect the next Bond sidearm to be a hunting knife, as this was used to finish the villain in Skyfall. But, of course, Q will hide a barrel for a 9mm Browning Short in the handle. Product placement will be for Wilkinson Sword.

PPK stands for Polizei-Pistole Kriminal not "Kurz". Kriminal in German refers to a detective. The PPK was intended as a Police detective's pistol.
"Pistols, Revolvers, and Ammunition" by Josserand and Stevenson. pp. pp. 238–239. ISBN 0517165163. "The PPK was intended as a concealment gun for detectives, hence its name, Polizei-Pistole Kriminal..."

"7.65 mm, with a delivery like a brick through a plate glass window."
That's an odd statement. Was he supposed to be talking about the power of the round there? Even later in the article, describing the round as "but of moderate power" isn't really accurate. Heck, there's only 1 common centerfire round that's less powerful than .32 ACP, and that's .25 ACP. For example: 9mm, a round plenty adequate, but not considered overkill by any means, is often as much as 3x as energetic as a .32 ACP.
Don't get me wrong, I carry a .32 ACP in my pocket quite often (kel-tec P32). I'm not trying to bash it. It'll put people into the dirt with proper shot placement. But nothing is gained by representing it inaccurately. In reality, it's one of the weakest centerfire rounds in existence.

A touch of suggestion for you. The K in ppk is commonly attributed to mean Kurz, it small/short in German. That is not the correct abreviation. The K instead stands for Kriminal. Which was a term used at the time roughly analogous to detective.

Most PPKs are actually single action/double action with a safety/decocker. You would carry them in double action mode, though, decocked, hammer down, safety off. The 7.65 mm pistol holds seven in the magazine and one in the pipe, total of eight. It is still a good pistol for a conceal carry piece, 8 32 acps are pretty good, although modern micros chambered in 9mm or .380 are now probably the better choice.

Love my S&W PK, .380 though it is a bit heavy and has an unexpected hefty recoil given the weight, but it is very, very accurate. While it is downsized, it isn't a pocket pistol like the Beretta M418 or Ruger LCP, but it is concealable. Plus you get some decent firepower, unless you are obsessed with the huge, crude calibers. I prefer the more sophisticate solution that is more likely to be there if I ever need it; plus you get that Bond, James Bond, je ne se qua as a bonus!

Ian Fleming was a charismatic, adventurer who served as a reserve officer with British Naval Intelligence during the war. A ladies man, he married late in life and was anything but faithful and not much of a father. His son, Caspar, sadly took his own life. He took to writing out of boredom and depression over aging. He was very explicit regarding equipment, cars, clothes, whiskey, guns, but knew little about guns. He even spelled "Biretta" incorrectly in describing Bond's original gun, a .25 caliber. The Beretta model at that time (1953) would have been a Model 418, an anemic weapon and Fleming was corrected by one of his biggest fans, Geoffrey Boothroyd, a legitimate firearms expert. Even with this advise, Fleming screwed up again. Boothroyd recommended a S&W Centennial Airweight equipped with a Berns-Martin Triple-draw holster. Fleming chose the sexier but less effective Walther PPK and the Berns Martin which was designed for the S&W, not the Walther. Prior comments are very accurate in that the PPK would not be a great choice compared to today's options any more than an Aston Martin DB5 or Bond's pre-War Bentley would excel over a new car of almost any variety. This is fiction and Hollywood, however and Walthers and Bentleys are about as sexy as you can get.

My uncle took a Walther ppk 380 off a German officer in WW2. The holster has a eagle with the swastica (?)
made of metal and a short belt and buckle to keep the flap closed. My uncle was a paratrooper in WW2.
I love the gun, so small and easy to shoot, and accurate.

I own and carry a S&W PPKs in .380 ACP. It's extremely well made and accurate. With practice I can put an 8 shot grouping in a 4" circle at 15 yards. (7 in the mag and 1 in the pipe) It's a beautiful weapon. That is as much the reason for Bond carrying it as anything. But it real life it's a sweet pistol with serious capability in a trained hand.

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